Paeonia Japonica, Bamboo
by songandsilence
Summary: Sneaking into the National Arboretum at night is easier than it sounds when you've got the secret service on your side. Charlie/Zoey


AN: Charlie and Zoey just don't get enough love. Also, all of this belongs to God, aka Aaron Sorkin. :)

**Paeonia Japonica, Bamboo**

"I can't believe you talked me into this," Charlie complains as they sit in the back of a black SUV, driving along in the dark. Zoey just sends him a mischievous smile that makes him think he'd do pretty much anything if she asked, and then turns toward the front.

"Can you drop us off here? We can walk the rest of the way."

The driver turns back. "Don't you want to go through the front gate, Miss Bartlet?"

She crinkles her nose and shakes her head. "Nope. We're going to be stealthy and sneak in." Her hands grip the neck of the bottle of champagne in her hands, the one she convinced a secret service agent to buy because they wouldn't be drinking it until she was twenty-one. He still wasn't quite sure how she'd gotten that to work, but she was fairly charming.

"Just to go over this again, we're going to sneak into the National Arboretum? At night? To bury a bottle of champagne to drink once you graduate?"

"Yep." He's almost taken by surprise as she kisses him, but the secret service agents don't know that they actually had wine earlier, and Zoey can't hold her liquor very well. Also, she's got the rest of the bottle in her bag.

The SUV pulls into a gentle stop and Zoey is already scrambling out the door and onto the side walk. "Come on!" She yells, beckoning to him. Sighing, Charlie thinks about exactly how much trouble he could get in with her father – the leader of the free world and all that – and yet still jumps out of the car to follow her. She beams and does a little spin, obviously feeling good, and he can't help but smile back and reach for her hand. When it comes to Zoey Bartlet, he's hopeless.

They creep along the wall to the gate – well, Zoey creeps because she obviously is imagining that they're about to break into a high security prison or something, and that they don't have armed guards all up and down the street. She slips inside – it's open, of course – and drags him with her. She whispers something to him hurriedly but he doesn't catch it.

"Zoey, babe, slow down. We're not being hunted down by enemy troops or anything." She stops and turns to him, and he almost runs into her.

"Do you think we could outrun those secret service agents?" she says breathlessly, looking up at him with eyes full of moonlight.

He laughs. "No. Not so much." She makes a face before turning and pulling him along again, though this time at a more relaxed pace. He slips his hand out of hers and wraps his arm around her waist. She leans into him as they walk, looking around and squinting in the darkness.

"Where do you think would be a good spot? To hide buried treasure?" Teasingly, she glances up at him.

He runs his fingers along the curve of her waist as he looks around the sweeping grounds, full of flowers and trees and brooks. As they come over a little hill, there is a stream down at the bottom of the dip, with a beautiful arching bridge over it that gleams red in the moonlight. Zoey pauses beside him, her breath catching.

"Here," she whispers, and slips out of his arms. "Let's bury it here." She turns to him again. "Do you have the shovel?"

Charlie holds up the little hand shovel and follows her into a little clearing off to the side of the bridge. In the moonlight, they get down on their hands and knees and dig up wet earth, their knees damp. Zoey giggles a few times and Charlie feels ridiculous but more than a little ecstatic. This was Zoey's idea, after all, and it thrilled him that she thinks they'd be together four years from now. When he thinks back on the last couple of months…never in a million years would he have thought he'd end up as the president's personal aide, let alone dating the president's daughter.

As she covers up the champagne bottle with dirt using her hands, he just watches her. With all her spitfire and intelligence and intense sense of duty to her parents, she is everything he hadn't expected to like. Love. He loves her. Right then and there, with dirt on his hands and surrounded by secret service agents hidden behind bushes, he knows that he is completely and utterly in love with Zoey Bartlet.

"There," she says, sitting back on her knees and looking down at the fresh earth with a satisfied look. He leans over and kisses her, harder than he had meant to. She makes a little noise of surprise but then he feels her smile against his lips and there are crickets chirping in the fall air all around them.

When the break apart, they keep their faces close together, Charlie's hand cupping her jaw and her hand stroking his arm.

"May 7th. 10 PM. Can you remember that?" She sounds a little breathless, and a lot like she is unbelievably pleased with herself.

"Maybe we should write it down," he whispers back, pulling back a tiny bit to look at her eyes. She just smiles.

"Got a pen?"

Pulling out his wallet, Charlie finds a crumpled sticky note. "Nope, no pen." She fishes around in her bag and holds up a ballpoint pen, wiggling it in her fingers. He smiles and takes it from her. "Alright. 5/7, ten PM…" Suddenly he looks up. "How are going to know where to find it again?"

Zoey scrambles to her feet and runs over to a little sign sticking out of the ground. "Bamboo." Then she turns and walks over to another one, leaning over to read it. "Paeonia japonica."

"Got it," replies Charlie, copying it down on the sticky note, which he sticks back in his wallet. He stands and dusts off his pants. "Three and a half years from now."

She walks back to him. "Three and a half years from now." Grabbing the front of his jacket, she pulls him down for another kiss, something he can't place heavy in her gaze.

Charlie can't even think that far ahead. That would be President Bartlet's next term, if he gets reelected. If Charlie gets his job back. If he and Zoey are still together. But for now, he is just kissing Zoey in the arboretum close to midnight, their dirt-covered hands tangled together and a fourteen dollar bottle of champagne resting in freshly dug earth beneath their feet.


End file.
